Game of Thrones and 'Black Grantland': The Week in Pop-Culture Writing

The Boxer and the BattererLouisa Thomas | Grantland"A boxer who wins like a dancer allegedly beats women like a pugilist. What are you supposed to do with this?"

Stop Laughing at Old Movies, You $@%&ing Hipsters
Amy Nicholson | L.A. Weekly"His stubborn laughter was an advertisement for his own superiority, like it's heroic to refuse to be 'suckered' by a fake rock that's obviously fake. But there's nothing triumphant about being too cool to dream."

Karl Ove Knausgaard Gives the People What They Want
Haley Mlotek | National Post"Here, at last, was the unfiltered answer to the question that had plagued my adolescent self. Here, at last, was the truth I had suspected: what do teenage boys want? Not much."

Ten Years to Midnight
Jon Bois | SB Nation"The game of basketball is not going away; on the contrary, it will finally shake free of us and become what it was always meant to be."

Game of Fear
Zachary Jason | Boston Magazine
"Gjoni had already collected enough material on Quinn—personal Facebook messages, texts, and email chats—to fill a bible. What’s more, he had an inkling about how to get back at her—how to weaponize the metadata of their relationship. He wouldn’t even need to touch her."

Sansa Stark’s Own “Game of Thrones”: Don’t Call It Stockholm Syndrome—She’s a SurvivorSonia Soraya | Salon"Sansa Stark has stood out for being a character that does not often get the privilege of a point of view in knight-and-dragon stories ... In that way, she is a fantastical stand-in for the overwhelming number of girls that are disappeared, in some way, in our world: Elizabeth Smart, Jaycee Lee Dugard, Michelle Knight, Elisabeth Fritzl, and no fewer than 200 girls from Chibok, in Nigeria."

How Jason Whitlock Is Poisoning ESPN's "Black Grantland"Greg Howard | Deadspin
"In all, the notes tell a more compelling story about black life in America than anything The Undefeated has produced. And they point to one conclusion: Before it’s even launched, this site is already doomed."

"[Johnny] Carson, whether he knew it or not, was doing exactly what TV is supposed to be. Just let it go. Because it’s 11:30, and people are just looking for a pleasant experience. And I wish I could do that."

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